In the past barrel grills have been made for decades. Their advantage is that readily available oil barrels make good fire chamber housings but with disadvantages.
One of these disadvantages has been that in the process of cutting the barrel with either saw or torch to form top and bottom fire chamber housing sections, the cut edges so formed are jagged.
The sealing of gases inside the barrel is made difficult by the possibility of gas and air passage through the uneven jagged edges of the top and bottom housing sections where they engage each other.
Another disadvantage of the jagged edges, which have been common to all prior art, barrel grills to my knowledge, has been that many people have become injured on these jagged surfaces, cutting their hands open on the rusty steel.
An object of this invention is to provide a way to more effectively seal the opposed edges of top and bottom housing sections by covering these jagged edges with economically available extruded steel sections, such as by angle iron. When such angle irons are fixed to the housing sections then it is the straight horizontal surfaces of upper and lower angle irons that engage each other when the grill is closed. Although this does not completely prevent passage of air and gases between the upper and lower housing sections, yet it does reduce it greatly.
The same covering of the jagged edges has the extra purpose of providing smooth surfaces that will not cause injury to the hands or arms of persons operating the grill, or persons who might fall against the grill.
Another problem with barrel grills of past decades has been the mounting of hinges. Since hinges are flat at their wings, and since they must be attached to the curved surface of the housing sections, the hinge mountings have been relatively crude, of undesirable appearance, and in some homemade grills of a looseness.
However with the sealing coverings of this invention, flat surfaces are provided for attaching to the flat wings of the hinges whereby strong and attractive attachments are provided, much stronger than attaching the hinges to tiny sections of the sheet metal housings, the greater strength being because the coverings are themselves welded to the housing sections and many places along each of the sealing covering pieces.
Yet another problem has been the rebuilding of a fire in barrel grills. In the prior art it has been necessary to remove the meat holding grill surface from the grill in order to put more fuel on the fire therebeneath. This has been a special problem because it is easy to spill the meat off onto the ground during this removal, but more especially because the meat grid that supports the meat is very hot and cannot be handled with the hands.
This also necessitates the reaching with the hands up close to the hot fire itself in order to take the meat grid off of the grill. In addition this same supporting meat grid, with the meat thereon, must be placed back onto the grill as an additional step. Again this must be done with great care not only to prevent spillage of the meat therefrom, but also to avoid getting burned by the fire in the grill, which at that time is probably burning quite high.
Another problem with barrel grills has been control of the air supply for the fire chamber. In the past this has been done by such crude methods as poking a stick in between the lid and the bottom so as to hold the lid up a bit to let in air. Not only is this not the ideal place to let in air, but also quite a supply of sticks of various diameters are necessary in order to select one that best regulates the air flow.
A further disadvantage is that after a stick has been useful for a short time, then it must be removed or replaced with a stick of a different diameter. It is therefore an object of this invention to make it possible to control the ventilation in a more ideal way by means of a gate at the chimney and also at a lower opening at the bottom of the grill under a fire carrying grate, the lower opening having an ash door thereon which can be opened any selected amount to let in air. Since the damper on the chimney can also be opened varying amounts, there is a possibility of an infinite variation of air flow control with good passage through the fire.
While an ash door below a fire stoking door has been a well-known combination in cool furnaces, yet no one to my knowledge, has ever conceived of applying this to a barrel grill.
In the prior art the attachment of legs to the bottom housing of the fire chamber of such grills has not been as strong as desirable because of the necessity to connect the legs directly to the sheet metal housing itself. It is an objective hereof to use the strong jagged edge covering members as part of the connection of the legs to the fire chamber bottom section with the remainder of the connection being the welding of the jagged edge coverings and sealing members to the bottom housing section at many points.
Grills of the prior art have often been difficult to move even though they may have had wheels because of the lack of a convenient place to grip the grill when pushing. An objective hereof is to make possible effective moving of the grill from place to place, even while it is hot, and even though there is an economical use of only two wheels, by providing a handle on the opposite end of the grill from the wheels, the handle having a double purpose of also being a shelf support.